But still - a grand total of 437,800 words, spread over three volumes. It’s nearly as long as Lord of the Rings, which is supposed to have clocked in at half a million. No wonder I feel like I have just finished a marathon.

There is so much that I wanted to do, to flesh out the characters and the various dramatic incidents, to include some significant backstories and to generally do right by the epic, even if some of the not-so-essential stuff is snipped, I may very well finish with just as many words or more.

Something to think about, perhaps dividing the final volume into two. Say the heck with that and make it a quartet….

Slightly depressed this evening - the part-time job that I went to, after my dear friend Dave the Computer Genius and part-time employer died most unexpectedly, has come to an end. Also somewhat unexpectedly. Eh, I knew it was temporary, I just thought it would last a little longer! But they did think the world of my work and enterprise, will call me in again to work on specific projects and will recommend me enthusiastically to their various clients, I departed on extraordinarily good terms - it’s just that I am back to a certain degree of job and financial uncertainty.

On the up-side, the commute, even once a week was a bear and I would have slashed my own wrists with my teeth after spending another couple of eight hours a day on the phone doing cold calls.

Very simply, you’re mad at the wrong people. It’s not the cellular companies that make it impossible to remove the text messaging feature, it’s your federal government.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 to be exact.

Now…you may say, “But Timmer, that Act was never ratified.” and you’d be right.

However, the FCC in its infinite wisdom still took the part of The TCA of 1996 which said that telecommunications companies could not restrict telemessaging services and ran with it anyway. The idea being that if those messages were restricted, that would be an infringement on the senders’ First Amendment rights.

There isn’t a customer service rep working for a cellular company today who doesn’t WANT to turn off your text messaging. Believe me when I say that as much as it annoys our customers, it annoys us just as much. We don’t like being told what low-lifes we are or that we’re in cahoots with the texting spammers or what a scam it is. We don’t.

It is nice to be able to tell everyone that you’re mad at the wrong people though, and that word is getting out. Apparently the FCC is getting tired of cellular customers calling THEM to complain about it and there’s hope that by the end of the summer, we’ll be able to turn off those annoying messages for those folks who have no use for little messages on their phones.

UPDATE:  The more I read about this issue, the less the above explanation holds water.  I’m on my weekend, but I’m going to be speaking with the person who offered this explanation to me come Monday.  I’m not going to take it down though.  I’m going to leave this up as a reminder to do more research BEFORE I put up a post.  Thanks to those of you who chimed in and made me look closer at this.

If you want to maintain a healthy marital relationship, do not regale your beloved over lunch about the good times you had before you were married.

Specifically don’t talk about liberty in Okinawa, the red light district outside Kadena and bar girls. More specifically don’t say anything like the following: Boy, I could have married that girl - mmm hmm.

Because that would be what is referred to as a mistake.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

But…wait…if the prices are coming down on all of last year’s hot models, doesn’t that mean that new models are getting ready to be introduced?

Yes.

So, before you drop $19.95 on last year’s newest and best thing, keep in mind that this year’s newest and best phones are getting ready to be introduced. And no…after a certain amount of time, you won’t be able to return that cool phone from last year to get the newest and shiniest new toy that’s just come out.

Patience. Do some research. Check out the plethora of cell phone blogs and see what your carrier is getting ready to introduce before you jump on all of those inexpensive phones that the cellular companies are trying to unload before the new ones come out.

I know that iPhone has been burning a hole in your brain since it was introduced, but keep in mind that some of the companies that aren’t AT&Cingular are looking to introduce their Google Android Phones in the upcoming year. You all know that I’m an Mac-head. I wouldn’t give up my MacBook Pro for any other laptop out there. However, while I lust after an iPhone as much as any Mac Fanboy, I also know that the Androids are going to be the most customizable communications devices that we’ve ever seen. Third party applications will be the norm on these “phones.”

Remember, most companies give you discounted pricing on phones after you’ve had a phone for one year and then huge discounts at the two year mark. (Coincidently when your contract is about to expire.) If you’ve got a phone that you’ve had for two years and have that huge discount available, do you want to use it for a very cheap phone that’s going to be outdated by the end of the summer, or do you want to use it to bring down the price on a full blown communications device?

Me? I want my phone to be my phone, my iPod to be my iPod, and my laptop to be my laptop. I don’t think any of the comm devices out there or that are getting ready to come out take care of all of those tasks as well as the individual devices do…yet.

Of course, none of these new “all in one” devices are good without the features to support them. Check with your provider to see what the price is on the features that you want/need on your device. Some features are bundled. You can get internet/email/text messaging all for 19.95 with some devices, while others only have internet and email for 19.95 and you have to add an additional texting package. Some devices are less expensive (coughBLACKBERRYcough) but their features are going to cost you more. The sleek “grownup” device may be what fits your look, but the device targeted at the younger crowd, often have less expensive bundles that take care of all your needs.

What do I think of the Sprint “everything for 99.99″ plan? I think that’s the last ditch effort of a telecom to increase it’s customer base before they sell to another company. Unlimited talk, unlimited text, unlimited internet and email all for 99.99 simply isn’t fiscally maintainable for very long.

Having said all that, don’t look for the cheap or free or cool phones, look at what you need and then check with the wireless telecoms to find out what the total cost of ownership over a year is going to be. A couple hours worth of research can save you hundreds of dollars in you personal comm budget. And just a warning, if you’re going to start texting anytime soon, or give your teenager the ability to text, make sure you give yourself and them enough messages to last the month. The thing about text messaging is that the more you do it, the more you do it.

Personally, the book chapter is the most important. It’s the final chapter of the Adelsverein saga, AKA “Barsetshire with Cypress Trees and a lot of Sidearms”, for which I first sketched out some notes and a short plot outline eighteen months ago. It was going to be a single book, incorporating a lot of the elements for which “Truckee” was criticized as not having, in order to be commercial; a lot of suspense about survival of the main characters, a fair amount of violence, romantic tension and even a hint of sex. I decided that I might as well throw in operatic levels of everything, in the hopes of being more commercially appealing. I thought I could do another unknown dramatic story of the frontier, since hardly anyone outside Texas has ever heard of the German colonies. The more I discovered in the course of researching this little corner of the 19th century, the more that I was drawn into my characters’ lives.

I wanted to go farther than just a simple romance about the founding of a small town, and the heroine’s discovery of love and a new land, of marriage and the birth of her first child. I had to follow her and her family and circle of friends through the crucible of the Civil War, through loss and desolation, up to the dawning of new hope and the crumbling of the Confederacy. The last volume does not tell quite so neatly contained a story; it’s a story of building again, of the rise of the cattle baronies in post-war Texas, of middle age and seeing your children open their wings and flying, of letting go of illusions and coming to terms with life. At the very end, my heroine sits in the 20th century parlor of her younger daughters’ house, reflecting on it all. She has seen marvelous things, known fascinating people, seen the world move from one powered by horse and sails to one where men fly, in engine-powered contraptions of wire and canvas. She has also become an American.

Sometime this week, I will write that last chapter of her story, Oh, I won’t be done with it, of course – I will need revise and edit, polish and format. I will need to re-read a stack of books, classic and modern Westerniana, immerse myself in the coffee-table books of Western art that I bought at the library sale last month, make about a thousand notes of new inclusions, take in the feedback of all the people who have read all three volumes, and chain myself to a hot computer for a couple of months. But it is the beginning of the end. One of the other Texas IAG members takes beautiful scenic photos and likes to fiddle around with artistic effects. He is letting me use three of them as covers for the Adelsverein Saga – look for all three in December of this year. For a sneak peek at his work, I put some of them up on my book website.

What to do next? I don’t know, yet – I had thought of doing a sort of prelude, about pre-Republic Texas, and maybe an adventure to do with the Mason County Hoo-Doo War, the original farmers-and-cattlemen feud. I’d hate to milk a franchise to death, though. I’d almost rather start on something original.

On the literary front I have a signing for “Truckee’s Trail” at a local Borders next month, a place that not only has a very interested and supportive general manager, but a venue that jumps most evenings, being co-located in a complex which includes a huge movie megaplex and a lot of popular restaurants in a well-heeled part of town. Alas, the IPPY short-list has been released, and “Truckee” didn’t place. The other contest I entered it in won’t be announced until October, so I’m well served by putting it out of my mind entirely.

Back to the 19th century…